It's been a strange few days, but here we are, sitting in a dimly-lit restaurant by vast, spotless windows, overlooking Bondi Beach and the ocean beyond, my plate full, and my wife's tongue as black as the night sky. Hang on ...

"Why's your tongue gone all black?" I ask, and there's a panicked moment of genuine concern before we both remember that squid ink risotto can do that to a girl.

The view is genuinely breathtaking. It's the kind of view that can make a man propose, if he hadn't proposed already. That's why it's a dangerous view. Many romantic mergers must have happened thanks to this view alone; many men must have agreed to many things they didn't want or mean to do under a moon this big, to the sound of waves like these.

We're at Icebergs Dining Room, clinging on to the very edge of the city, and it's a relief to be here. The past few days have featured freeway dining and backwater snacks, as we drove towards Newcastle - a city of coal and copper and soap and steel - and on towards Sydney.

But Newcastle had been fun. We posed by the Aussie Mossie - a giant metal celebration of all that is good about the humble mosquito, which proudly guards the Hexham Bowling Club. And we discovered the Hunter river and Christ Church cathedral, as well as the deafening noise the tin roof of a beautiful cottage can make in a storm. We ate noodles and drank local beer, and read papers in Goldburgs on Darby Street. We stopped for petrol and juice at a garage shaped a bit like Uluru, which had once been the great hope of bringing untold wealth to the area, but was now just a garage shaped a bit like Uluru.

The Leyland Brothers had built it in 1990, as part of the slightly pompous-sounding Leyland Brothers World, and they'd pinned their hopes on it but received nothing in return except bankruptcy and woe. Now it seems even the people who work there - the people who rely at least in part on curious tourists visiting a sold-on attraction - don't seem willing to acknowledge that it is an attraction; that there's anything odd about working here at all. There are no leaflets. No postcards. No signs. No information offered or given. Just some slightly dour people trying to make ends meet in a garage with a giant plastic rock on top.

And so we bought a bag of Burger Rings and our petrol from a depressed-looking man behind the counter and left in silence.

Sydney welcomed us with open arms, and we wander past the Opera House and down by the Harbour Bridge until we hear a familiar accent. A British accent.

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is what I do, I entertain people - it's my calling!"

The voice is shrill and annoying and broadcast through loudspeakers. A small woman is pointing at a Perspex box and trying to gather a crowd by ending every sentence with an invisible exclamation mark.

"I actually pay the local council for the privilege of performing for you! The only money I make comes from you! And the show that I am about to put on for you is worth money! In a moment I will be climbing into this box!"

She says this as if no one has ever climbed into a box before.

"And then I will step out of it! Now, if there's one thing that breaks my heart, it's people not contributing money at the end of the show! I want paper money. If you genuinely don't have paper money, I'll accept coins!"

"That's good of her," mutters a man to my left, and we swap a smile.

"But please don't just watch the show and walk away! That is disrespectful! At least do me the courtesy of that!"

Her plea is whiny and bitter, and would be admirable for its rudeness, were it not so, well, rude.

"I'm out here performing for you!" she shouts, not actually having performed yet. "You should be supporting Sydney's performers!"

People look at her with blank faces, possibly wondering how they could sneak off.

"Right! Here we go!"

And she gets into the box. And after five or 10 seconds, she gets out again.

"Don't just walk away!" she shouts at a man who is just walking away, and her anger works. People fall over themselves to throw paper money at her. I spot not one coin.

We move off, proud to have somehow resisted giving her anything, and we find ourselves moving with a crowd towards tents pitched up in the middle of the street ... we have found our way to the Australian Beer Festival, and, with tiny taster cups in hand, we get talking to a small group of locals.

"Best place to eat?" says one of the men, clearly on his millionth tiny cup of the day. "Gotta be Icebergs. For the views alone. You'll fall in love all over again. You gotta try the squid ink risotto!"

"Squid ink risotto?" I say later, as we sit in a taxi on the way to the very edge of Australia. "Who the hell would order that?"